This was a missed conversation for me in more ways than one. Although I attended OER17 in person, I had missed the original workshop as I was part of a panel running in parallel. And then I missed the first 12 minutes of the Google Hangout as I had connection problems but I am so glad I got there eventually as it was a lovely session. It was great to hear what participants had to say but I also loved the chat stream that was a missed conversation for people watching the video. I have just watched the video and I am missing the first 12 minutes of the chat stream from there 🙂

When I eventually joined the Google Hangout, and was invited to introduce myself, I explained that I am an Itinerant Scholar, having retired from Higher Education in 2013.

Here’s what I said as my introduction:

In preparation for this event, I read the abstract, blog posts and viewed the video provocations. I reflected on the process model

My personal motivation, based on me tending to talk too much, was to participate differently in inclusive conversation. As well as changing my actions, I am imagining a counter to algorithmic shaping of conversation online.

First I thought of a human algorithm (or even humane algorithm). I like the human bit but think we can do better than fixedness of algorithm.

So this was my attempt to re-create the workshop activity and I came up with some heuristics, rules of thumb that I see as a concept, a broad guide, a space of adaptation and action.

I had started to think about these heuristics when participating in #tjc15 organised by the lovely Laura Gogia. The hashtag twitter conversation was busy and fast flowing so I tried to think of what I could do to have a meaningful participation.

In the Missing Conversations hangout, I concentrated on listening to the speakers and participating in the chat, both of which channels were very interesting, though those viewing the video, live or as a recording, couldn’t see the chat. Privacy, surveillance and sacrifice of personal data in return for ‘free access’ were all explored, and it’s worth watching the video, if you missed the session.

I find it difficult to separate the spoken contributions from the chat room, and in a way that is an example of the differential experiences that platforms such as Google Hangout can engender. Kate Green explained beautifully at 25.30 into the Hangout that she had to change her browser and cookie permissions so that participating in the workshop compromised her privacy strategies. This chimed with Chris Gilliard’s contributions (video and spoken) regarding the implications of surveillance capitalism.

Towards the end of the Hangout, I shared my heuristics for participating in a one hour synchronous conversation online, which are:

I will:

LISTEN – I minimise my speaking, and maximise my listening.

PREPARE – I research in advance and note THREE points that I might make/respond to.

WAIT – I make ONE of these points as a statement, being prepared to bring in the others in response, if relevant, within the flow of the conversation.

REFLECT – I reflect and report back via a blog post/ Twitter comments.

I don’t really think that these heuristics are sufficient to counter algorithmic and functional shaping of conversational streams in social media but they are my human shaping. Of course, we can also resist in other ways.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend OER17 an Open Education conference, The Politics of Open. When I heard at the close of OER16 that was the theme and that Josie Fraser and Alek Tarkowski were the Chairs, I was thrilled. I did wonder if that ‘politics’ aspect might be be off-putting for some. But the submissions that I reviewed engaged with the topic and were generally of high quality. I felt reassured and optimistic.

And it was a lovely conference (organised by the very lovely ALT) with so much friendliness and spirit and voices from beyond UK where it happened. I guessed it was going to be great from my experience on the planning committee and reviewing abstracts, but it really did exceed my expectations. And for that, I should start by thanking the Conference Chairs who came up with the inspiring Conference themes. The whole experience was invigorating, and I am still enjoying the space after the conference. There was so much going on at the conference, and is still happening, please check out hashtag #OER17 as delegates and hashtag attenders continue to share and engage. I have been able to get a flavour of sessions that I couldn’t attend because I was in another good session.

I blogged the wonderful keynotes, which were inspirational in different ways, and I had blogged in preparation for the conference check my tag. Feeling slightly dazed, I am reflecting and trying to fulfill my desire to contribute to OER17.

So let me think beyond the web links to the experience. This was a lovely conference from start to finish. The conference themes were inspirational: the keynotes were invigorating, they opened up thinking and generated some lovely abstracts and many beautiful presentations, lightning talks, workshops. The corridor/tea break encounters, the discussion within sessions, the social media exchange, the bowling and Karaoke on Wednesday night all contributed to my good experience of #OER17.

But a bigger question is how can this conference make a difference in a broader sense?

I can’t capture the difference it will make in terms of an organised movement but I suspect that it will make a difference, however small, to how people think and what they do. I saw a few glimpses of criticality being seen as powerful for change rather than as a negative approach. That gladdened my heart but what of all the things I didn’t see? I am scouring #OER17 tag and seeing more but there will be far more that eludes me and that’s OK.

I will share two experiences that I had and that are part of the difference OER17 made to me.

The first was that I plucked up my courage and sang (very badly) at the Karaoke on Wednesday. I chose Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, and hadn’t realised till then that it’s an anthem for Open.

They took all the trees Put ’em in a tree museum And they charged the people A dollar and a half just to see ’em

Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got Till it’s gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot

The second was seeing Chris Gilliard’s provocation for, I think, 2 OER17 sessions. I love the thought that digital creations can flit across to face to face sessions and flit back to channels like Twitter and blogs. I love the way Chris performs his own and Shoshana Zuboff’s ideas in this video.

These are ideas that are already familiar to me, and that have informed my own work but Chris’s video triggers new thoughts. That’s part of the beauty of open in a digital age that we can engage with ideas through and about the means by which we share.

Lucy gave us examples of how Wikimedia is engaged in projects with schools, colleges, universities and libraries across the UK and elsewhere. Wikipedia can play a part in developing digital literacy.

She also highlighted the different activities that can be done in the different language instances of Wikipedia. The English Language one has over 5 million articles, while other languages have a need for content but that need offers opportunities to translate and recontextualise in young editors’ own languages.

Wikimedia are well aware of cultural and gender gaps, and works hard to address them, in order to diversify Wikipedia’s content and contribution.

Another strand of Wikimedia strategy is to advocate for change in policy and practice in institutions with whom they are involved, with the help of ambassadors eg Wikimedians-in-residence in universities.

Lucy emphasised that Open as a political act does not mean that Open is in opposition to Privacy.

She highlighted ways in which we, the audience, could get involved in events, joining Wikimedia, and attending the Wikimedia UK AGM. I attended last year’s AGM, and it was a great opportunity to meet people, learn at workshops and contribute to decisions.

The keynote was inspiring for those of us who were keen to learn more about Wikimedia through the sessions provided in the programme.

[I promised to live blog the keynotes for OER17 as I had for OER16 but my method depended on pictures from my phone being pulled through to flickr. The wifi at the venue wasn’t up to this so the post is a combination of live and edited.]

Diana told us that this demonstrated 2 things she has learned: that location is everything; and the need to participate by engagement and activism rather than photo-opportunity.

Diana gave an example of an art installation concerning Enron that she worked on right in the centre of the Financial centre. Some financial workers engaged with her, even bring their shredded documents!

Her next example was the project that refurbished 25 row houses in Houston Texas – most used by artists, and few as homes for battered women.

Another of Diana’s own projects was White Guilt Cleanup – cleaning up privilege, one white person at a time. White people could buy a White Guilt Offset Credit that would benefit their or others’ victims.

Diana worked with Indie magazine in Berlin to help them change practices through the project, and their joint work was successful in making change.

Diana has done different political Karaoke projects at Democratic National Congress, and a bar in Jerusalem.

Her takeaways were:

make sure you have local cooperation to work in their spaces

or bring them to your project

use Art projects as a Trojan Horse to make change where it matters

Conflict Kitchen in Pittsburgh only employs people and serves food from countries in conflict with USA. Waiters are trained in handling conflict/communication. The goal is to counter media narratives about conflict locations.

Sheila MacNeill asked about how we could harness Art in Education. Diana told of her experience mainly in after school activities, Higher Education being her least favourite area.

Bryan Lamb asked about people who may be using related techniques but for less than desirable purposes. Diana explained how Art can become a disruptor.

Muireann asked about the possibilities of OE researchers to spread their message, and Lucy described a political art installation in the House of Westminster that gave disenfranchised young people a voice in the right place to be heard.

This was a keynote that felt and looked to me like an art event – it was great fun to be there.

[I promised to live blog the keynotes for OER17 as I had for OER16 but my method depended on pictures from my phone being pulled through to flickr. The wifi at the venue wasn’t up to this so the post is a combination of live and edited.]

Maha Bali describes herself as “open and connected educator, learnaholic and writeaholic” and you can find her on Twitter and at her blog.

Maha has modelled openness in the development of her keynote by blogging for ideas, sharing her slides in advance and adopting an inclusive approach through the process.

Josie Fraser introduced Maha as an open educator who models and personifies open educational practice.

Maha started by asking the audience to share how many OERs they had produced – quite a variety.

She then asked a series of questions that highlighted (without being too explicit) how openness might benefit, followed by a ‘meet your neighbour’ activity.

Maha used the Little Miss Helpful book to highlight the nature of ‘helping’ and how the helped relate to it – does the person on crutches want you to open the door for them? and does the beggar with no teeth appreciate the apple she is given. Maha and a member of the audience discussed the nature of intentions – whether we nurture our intentions properly, whether they include those we engage with.

Maha went on to discuss Education funding as ‘foreign aid’, an interesting analogy.

You try to ‘fix the shirt but spoil the trousers’. Your intentions are good but what you help spoils something else. Maha included stories shared by others.

Christian Friedrich shared his stories about trying to help refugees and the unanticipated problems that arose.

Aleks Tarkowski talked about Creative Commons Licenses and the complexity and legal nature created mini-copyright police.

Maha then went on to talk about curriculum and how the hidden curriculum and the power relations that lie behind open relations in Egyptian HE.

People with less privilege may have a different experience (and fears) of using CC0 compared with the more powerful.

SHe also gave the example of the 2 versions of the 6 Day war in 1973 on English and Arabic wikipedia – same ‘facts’, different interpretation.

She compared cMOOCs and xMOOCs , usually in English, with Edraak a MOOC written in Arabic.

Maha went on to speak about Virtually Connecting that includes people who can’t be at the conference and to encourage face to face delegates to take away some of their experiences for the benefit of those who weren’t there.

[I promised to live blog the keynotes for OER17 as I had for OER16 but my method depended on pictures from my phone being pulled through to flickr. The wifi at the venue wasn’t up to this so the post is a combination of live and edited.]

In 1996, I was lecturing in Information Systems in the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at University of Salford. A colleague ran a Lotus Notes Server (under his desk as I recall) that hosted a Student Information System – and I had an account on the server for that reason.

And then – Lotus released the Domino server that transformed from just a Notes server to become an Interactive Web server ! What was posted on a Notes Server could be shared on the Web.

Wow!

I had looked enviously at Universities that offered tilde Web spaces for staff and sometimes students, but had no idea how I could persuade IT Services, or learn HTML alongside all my other commitments.

But now, I had a user account that enabled me to create Lotus Notes databases that would allow students to access and engage with what I published on a MS Office template database. So I just uploaded Word and Powerpoint documents to Lotus Notes, and there they were – on the Web. OK so the urls were a nightmare, but I was sharing course resources openly. And I could sync the databases to my home computer, reducing my dialup charges.

My intention was that students could access resources but I soon realised that other educators were finding my stuff, and contacting me. This encouraged me in different ways: I adopted a more scholarly approach to citation/referencing in slideshows; and I was able to share resources as my network increased. Later, a colleague who joined us from another university told me how much she valued my stuff and we worked to create new web materials together when we team taught a large module.

I had also discovered the Notes Discussion template, and realised that I could set up Discussion spaces for students (and invite others) where they could have conversations that were shared but not in the public domain.

And then, an institutional reorganisation happened and I lost access to the Lotus Notes server and had to learn HTML in a month but that’s another story !

I am a newbie to OER conferences, and #OER16 was the first I attended. I loved it, and live blogged and blogged quite a few keynotes and sessions. The picture above is of David Kernohan at Laura Ritchie’s Ukelele workshop at OER16. I really enjoyed this workshop that was so engaging, mentally and physically, that I couldn’t possibly have live-blogged it.

I am a fairly recent participant in OER conferences but for the second time, I have participated in planning and reviewing by being a member of OER17 committee. OER17’s theme is The Politics of Open, a topic that becomes more relevant by the day. I was intrigued when OER17was announced (thanks Josie Fraser and Alek Tarkowski) and inspired by the call to submit an individual submission and contribute to a joint one. My excitement was mounting: doing, thinking, writing,talking about open education/ resources in context was political. Then the abstracts to review arrived in my mailbox and I realised that if my sample was anything to go by, OER17 will be a very timely and significant exploration of the politics of open.

Cross-referencing the titles and programme

This week, the programme was published, and I have already started to think about which sessions I wish to attend. Obviously, I can’t decide until I can read the abstracts but I can already foresee some difficult choices. And then there are the corridor chats with the interesting people who will be participating.

This blog post started life as a comment on Martin Weller’s post about language and how it affects behaviour and thoughts in Edtech. The comment mysteriously disappeared as I posted it so I thought that I would repost it here and link from Martin’s post. The title of the post “Let’s think inside the box“ made me think about Blackboxing .
Whilst I agreed with many of the ideas in the post, Martin’s statement “But this post isn’t about politics” stopped me short. I wondered what those of us thinking of making a submission to OER17 would make of this. I have been puzzling for a few weeks about what politics can mean in the context of “The Politics of Open” theme for OER17, and I guess that others may be doing so too. I think that the concept of politics being broad and interpreted in different contexts will make for a great conference that enriches our understanding of Open Educational Practices and Resources.
So I would like to encourage Martin to think about how his post could be about politics and ‘fit’ OER17 – maybe even rework it as a submission 🙂 I was grateful to him for getting me to think about politics and language and my Scholar Google search turned up 2 corking resources.

My subject discipline was Information Systems (that bears some parallels to Edtech) and in our teaching, we included social and organisational aspects as well the technological ones. Ethics, gender and power were definitely on the curriculum. When we think about education and/or technology without considering the politics – global, national, organisational, personal, interpersonal – we are filtering our understanding and it’s no wonder that our noble aspirations don’t always work out as we would hope. This is why I think the OER17 theme is so exciting – it can help us expand our thinking and our practice.

Reading posts on variations of Creative Commons licensing by Alan Levine, Doug Belshaw , and Maha Bali really made me think about our practices of licensing, copyrighting and attributing creative works, particularly of what we share as ‘knowledge’. Alan describes the various CC licenses he has used for his photos on Flickr, and the trials and tribulations he encounters in trying to apply CC0 to all of his images on Flickr. I had to check what CC0 was:

” Once the creator or a subsequent owner of a work applies CC0 to a work, the work is no longer his or hers in any meaningful sense under copyright law. Anyone can then use the work in any way and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, subject to other laws and the rights others may have in the work or how the work is used. Think of CC0 as the “no rights reserved” option.” Creative Commons FAQ

Doug Belshaw explains why he has applied CC0 to all of his work (including his doctoral thesis) that is under his control. Maha Bali, whilst acknowledging that CC licenses can be ignored, reveals how her approach to licence choice is contextual.

Thinking about my own practice, I publish this blog as CC BY-NC and try to publish my research writing in Open Access journals. Having said that, the last two articles I wrote with colleagues as I was retiring were published in closed journals, since those were the most beneficial for my co-authors still subject, unlike myself, to the Research Excellence Framework. So my approach to copyright and licensing is also contextual. If asked do you publish openly? my answer would have to be – Yes, but it depends.

I am always interested in looking at historical accounts to try to understand innovation. Bijker(1995) was one of my teaching resources, with the story of the emergence of the popular style of the bicycle being a good classroom story to explore. Audrey Watters has argued powerfully that 21st Century ‘innovators’ in Educational Technology ignore/distort history in an attempt to big up their products and services.

Then I remembered reading about 19th century industrial innovations that relied on sharing rather than protection and secrecy. In looking for this, I didn’t find my original reading but instead found a very interesting article about the Cornish Pumping Engine (Nuvolari 2004). Nuvolari contrasts the ‘heroic narrative’ where individuals are credited with inventions with ‘collective invention’, an incremental approach where the contributions of individuals can remain anonymous. For example, we all ‘know’ that James Watt invented the ‘modern’ steam engine that helped to bring about the Industrial Revolution. Nuvolari’s case study examines what happened in Cornwall, a remote area of England, in the 19th century mining industry which had memories of a bad experience in the last quarter of the 18th century with the more fuel-efficient patented Watt steam engines, needed to address flooding in their mines. The business model that Boulton & Watt established with Cornish mine adventurers was royalties based on hypothetical fuel efficencies of the Watt engine as compared with the earlier Newcomen engine. This model was unsatisfactory to the mine adventurers not only for business and economic reasons but also because Boulton and Watt’s refusal to license the design prevented Cornish engineers from improving the engines to suit local circumstances. Watt’s patent hampered engine innovation in Cornwall (and elsewhere) and the 19th century started with a dearth of progress.

“This situation lasted until 1811, when a group of mine “captains” (mine managers) decided to begin the publication of a monthly journal reporting the salient technical characteristics, the operating procedures and the performance of each engine. The explicit intention was twofold. First the publication would permit the rapid individuation and diffusion of best-practice techniques.
Secondly, it would create a climate of competition among the engineers entrusted with the different pumping engines, with favourable effects on the rate of technical progress.“

Lean’s Engine Reporter continued until 1904 and was accompanied by a steady improvement in the thermodynamic efficency of Cornish engines. Cornish adventurers were driven by pragmatism rather than an ideological attachment to open knowledge. I can recommend reading Nuvolari’s case study as it questions the standard historical account of the ‘golden boys’ role in the Industrial Revolution and the role of patents in stimulating innovation, and draws attention instead to innovation’s incremental, anonymous reality that occurred in a variety of social, geographical, legal and economic circumstances.

Nuvolari also hints at the central nature of patents with frequency increasing with proximity to the Patents Office.

So what have I learned?

I have already started to think about the personal is political in relation to Open Educational Practice, and have long observed (from my gendered lens) restricted narratives and dialogues even within open educational communities , see this post from 2011. Cornish mine adventurers had pragmatic reasons for challenging patents and promoting competition between engineers, and will no doubt have operated within class structures. If we want to promote Open Education that challenges structural inequalities of class, gender and race, we need to acknowledge these inequalities and be alert to where heroic narratives obscure structure inequalities in the cause of ‘innovation’ and profit.

The OER17 Call for Contributions is about to be released but we already know something the theme of the 2017 conference, entitled The Politics of Open, chaired by Josie Fraser and Alek Tarkowski. OER16 was my first OER conference and I loved its friendly atmosphere, and of course I learned a lot too. The theme and chairs of OER17 were announced at the end of OER16, and I was thrilled at the boldness of the topic. From what I know of the OER community, we will rise to the challenge.

I have been thinking for some time about the topic of my own submission to OER17, and in preparation for writing it, I started to think of the different flavours of ‘political’ that are important to Open Educational Practice (a concept explored so well by Catherine Cronin, in her 2016 keynote). The theme of the conference is broad enough to welcome many different perspectives in policy, organisational and societal contexts, and is sure to include fun too.

My first thought was about openness in politics, and I found http://openpolitics.org.uk/ , and from there to http://www.rebootdemocracy.org/ . I wonder if there will be submissions that are specifically about political systems but it’s not really where I think I can best contribute. The conference themes include policy and practice in local and wider contexts, organisational politics, and issues of equality and participation. I think my contribution will look at digital literacies but I am starting by looking at how I can frame my thinking.

I am interested in approaches to openness that are contextual, and don’t expect openness to automatically remove existing structural inequalities. For the Networked Learning Conference this year, my contribution to a symposium with Catherine Cronin and Laura Gogia included this digital story that hopefully illustrates my approach.

As I develop my abstract for OER17, my challenge is to present my ideas in a meaningful way for the audience (assuming it gets accepted). The phrase ‘the personal is political’ popped into my mind and I decided to refresh my memory of what it meant. Carol Hanish wrote an article originally published in 1970 in Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation. Carol’s article was renamed by the book editors as “The Personal Is Political”, and it has had widespread traction over the last 46 years. Reflecting in 2006, Carol said

“It challenged the old anti-woman line that used spiritual, psychological, metaphysical, and pseudo-historical explanations for women’s oppression with a real, materialist analysis for why women do what we do. ” from 2006 Introduction

A materialist analysis of Open Educational Practice seems important to me, revealing lived experiences and informing possible collective responses, beyond an idea that the political is personal. I am still homing in on my specific topic for my abstract but I feel sure that the feminist perspective of ‘the personal is political’ can help me explore the politics of Open Educational Practice.